After Carter, the next United States coffee-roaster patent was granted to J.R. Remington, of Baltimore, on a roaster employing a wheel of buckets to move the green coffee beans singly through a charcoal heated trough. It never became a commercial success. ([See 4, page 630.])
In 1847–48, William and Elizabeth Dakin were granted patents in England on an apparatus for "cleaning and roasting coffee and for making decoctions." The roaster specification covered a gold, silver, platinum, or alloy-lined roasting cylinder and traversing carriage on an overhead railway to move the roaster in and out of the roasting oven; and the "decoction" specification covered an arrangement for twisting a cloth-bag ground-coffee-container in a coffee biggin, or applied a screw motion to a disk within a perforated cylinder containing the ground coffee, so as to squeeze the liquid out of the grounds after infusion had taken place.
The roaster has survived, but the coffee maker was not so fortunate. The Dakin idea was that coffee was injuriously affected by coming in contact with iron during the roasting process. The roasting cylinder was enclosed in an oven instead of being directly exposed to the furnace heat. The apparatus was provided also with a "taster," or sampler, the first of its kind, to enable the operator to examine the roasting berries without stopping the machine. As will be seen by referring to the picture of the model shown, the apparatus was ingenious and not without considerable merit. Dakin & Co. are still in existence in London, operating a machine very like the original model.
In 1848, Thomas John Knowlys was granted a patent in England on a perforated roasting cylinder coated with enamel.
It is to be noted in passing that this idea of handling the green bean with extreme delicacy, evidently obtained from the French, was never taken seriously in the United States, whose inventors chose to handle it with rough courage.
The Dakin Roasting Machine of 1848
The first English patent on a coffee grinder was granted to Luke Herbert in 1848.